It’s all Greek to me is an expression meaning I don’t understand it. The Greek alphabet is unintelligible to anyone without learning.

As happy as Larry means extremely happy. Larry is a name as in the children’s radio series Toytown, where Larry the Lamb pronounced his name like a baa. However Graeme Donald gives the derivation from a dialect word, larry meaning confusion or excitement from larrikin – a corruption of larking (The Dictionary of Modern Phrase).

Jerry-building is substandard construction. There was a maritime phrasejury builtdescribing emergency repairs to a ship. The reference book mentioned above gives a more thorough explanation of possible derivations.

Take the Mickey means tease cruelly.

A lazy Susan is a revolving food-stand on a table. (It saves work.) Whoever heard of anyone with the same name as me being lazy?

A lazy Betty is a pull-cord light switch, which may be operated from a bed. Betty is one of the shortened forms of Elizabeth. Bessie, Bess, Bet, Beth, Bethie, Liz and Lizzie are other diminutives. Eliza is a name in its own right.

Uncle Sam is a symbol of America inspired by Samuel Wilson.

John Bull is a typical Englishman.

John Brown features is a song –

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on!

Punch and Judy are two glove puppets who appear in traditional puppet plays in striped booths usually at the seaside.A Punch and Judy Show includes Punch, who is violent, his wife, Judy, their baby and a dog. The puppeteer is hidden inside the booth.

Murphy’s law is that anything which can happen will happen. It is usually blamed when something goes wrong.

Name-dropping is mentioning the names of well-known people of one’s acquaintance in the hope of improving one’s own reputation.

Melchizidek is a name you may not have heard before. (The “ch” is pronounced “k”.) His story is to be found in Genesis 14:17-24

We were singing “secundum ordinem Melchisedek” at a certain speed, it has to roll off one’s tongue. After a while, I got curious and looked him up. 🙂

I know Murphy’s Law as “if anything can go wrong, it will.” Mrs. Murphy has a few corollaries such as “if anything can get into the bread dough, it will,” something I think to myself as I clean the counter before kneading.